Ric Uslaner, Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for American Law and Political Science at the Southwest University of Political Science and Law, Chongqing, China, was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in American Political Science at the Australian National University, completing his 5 month stay in December 2010.
While at the ANU, he extended his research on how residential segregation leads people to have less trust in others.
“Australia faces the same issues of diversity as do other Western countries,” Uslaner argues. “But it is important to recognise how immigration is a threat to social solidarity. Some put the blame on immigrants, but the real story is that the isolation of immigrants and other minorities from the majority of the population is the source of low trust."
His research is being used towards his new book: Segregation and Mistrust, on an advance basis with Oxford University Press.
A brief review of his time in Australia is published in the Australian-American Fullbright Commission's Annual Report for 2010, available here.